


grow me like a garden

by froggy_baby



Series: the years [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Has Self-Esteem Issues, M/M, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-04-03 21:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggy_baby/pseuds/froggy_baby
Summary: “I just wanted to let you know that—” Keith sounded vaguely angry. “That—that I have feelings for you, okay?”The tablet Lance was playing on fell right onto his forehead, and for some reason, his body decided to echo the tablet, and fall right off the sofa, onto the floor.orThe story of Lance fully, irrevocably, spectacularly losing it over Keith Kogane.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: the years [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1422112
Comments: 28
Kudos: 145





	grow me like a garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speaks/gifts).

> ☛ This fic is a prequel to four years, four months (part 1 of this series), but they are separate works and can be read in any order you like.
> 
> For my wonderful friend K, a belated birthday present. I love you so much dude.
> 
> ◦ Thank you so much to my collaborator and co-conspirator [Angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend/), who will be writing a few chapters in this work as well.
> 
> ◦ Thank you to my amazing beta [Ran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ran/). You give me such confidence, and your insight is invaluable to me.
> 
> ◦ Thank you to everyone who enjoyed 4y4m, I love you all.
> 
> enjoy

"So, did everyone read the mission data packets I sent?" Shiro asked, his gaze lingering expectantly on each of them in turn.

Lance had read it. Well, he’d read the subject line, which was basically the tl;dr version anyway. They were going to investigate a planet called _ Nifes _ . He may have gotten a little distracted trying to figure out a knife-related pun after that—there was definitely a joke in there somewhere.

"Nifes, huh?” Lance paused for effect. “Yeah, I took a _stab_ at it." He wiggled his eyebrows at an unimpressed-looking Shiro, and couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at Keith to see his reaction to the pun. He couldn’t deduce much from Keith’s impassive face.

“Actually, number three, the stress is on the second syllable, or rather the Nifesian  _ third _ syllable, so it’s pronounced more like ‘Nifes— _ hhh _ ’,” Coran corrected him, emphasizing the s and the drawn-out exhale after the word. 

“Whatever,” Lance said, still watching Keith’s downturned face for some reason.  _ Stupid _ . He could feel a prickling wash of heat threatening to climb up his cheeks.  _ Stupid, stupid _ .

“Hunk and Lance, you’ll be going down to  _ Nifes _ to find the Platinum braces we need for the magnet, which shouldn’t be hard—” Shiro started but was immediately interrupted.

“ _ Awesome! _ ” Lance all but shouted and launched himself across at Hunk. “Dream team united, buddy,” Lance said, grinning but clutching at Hunk’s soft shirt a bit too hard to be casual. He felt a cold sting of awareness about the size of his outburst, but it was blunted by the relief of being safely in Hunk’s orbit after his previous pathetic attempt at a joke. What the hell had he been thinking? Was that supposed to be relatable or funny to Keith ‘cause he liked knives? 

Jesus, he was  _ doing it again _ . 

Hunk shot him an excited, expansive smile, and Lance’s stressed attempt to discipline himself seemed to melt away for a second. Hunk was love and comfort incarnate. Lance returned the smile gratefully, his hand still gripping Hunk’s shoulder, and turned back to listen to the rest of the briefing.

Shiro gave Lance a quelling look for his outburst, a look that had Lance shrinking back with a sheepish, apologetic smile. It was a smile Lance used often. 

“—Meanwhile, Keith and Pidge will descend into Kesta to investigate the remaining magnetic field. Keith, you’ll be supporting Pidge—” Shiro went on, organizing tasks for the rest of the team, while Lance’s attention drifted back across the bridge.

Lance watched Keith look up at Shiro’s mention of his name and look over at Pidge for a few moments of acknowledging eye contact and a solid nod. It was fucking stupid of Lance to even think that guy had been paying any attention to whatever Lance had been saying anyway, he should probably calm down. He only ever managed to pierce the quiet intensity of Keith’s aura when he was really trying to get under his skin. He almost certainly hadn’t been listening to Lance, if he’d even noticed Lance was saying anything in the first place.

Lance managed to comfort himself with the thought for a second before it transformed from a warm blanket settling around him into a boulder crushing him.  _ He’s never going to see me, he exists in a completely different dimension. I’m so far below him it’s ridiculous.  _ The thought was bitter and dense, settling into his bones like an old friend.

Lance resolutely tried to keep his attention anywhere but on Keith for the rest of the meeting. He tried. But no matter how intently he stared at Allura’s podium to his left—or at the lines between the panels on the floor—or at Shiro’s right bicep, Keith’s presence opposite him lapped at the sides of his consciousness insistently. Something in his mind could not stop wanting to look. Telling him to turn and pay attention to that magnetic phenomenon of a person in the room. Denying himself felt like being stuck in a room with a freshly baked pie and trying to make himself eat mystery-meat food goo on the sidelines.

It was only a matter of time before he broke. 

When he did finally let his gaze skate toward Keith’s form across from him, he tried to keep it vague. Keep his field of vision general, hastily take Keith in as a smudge of red and black, and try to avoid actually seeing him or focusing in on him. But the harder he tried, the more power Keith seemed to be gaining in his mind, becoming a deafening fire alarm right in front of him. 

Lance’s strict avoidance and his determined unblinking stare at Pidge was probably glaringly obvious to everyone now. He needed to  _ be normal _ . 

Lance physically shook himself and focused on Hunk instead. He thought about the incoming downtime he’d be getting with his best friend. Hanging out with Hunk injected a lightness into him, an ease that he rarely felt with anyone else. They were gonna do so much taste testing and screwing around, and Lance couldn’t wait. And of course, they’d find those Platinum braces they needed. Those too. And absolutely no time was going to be devoted to tying himself into knots over Keith fucking Kogane, or whatever his name was.

  
  


*

  
  


The whole thing had started basically just as Lance hoped it would. Nifes had a proud trading culture that looked down upon the concept of currency, much preferring the noble art of bartering. So in preparation, they’d had to jump through a complex series of trading hoops to convert their GAC into a very specific variety of easily transportable commodities that they could use on Nifes.

Hunk and Lance easily managed to pick up the braces they’d need within the first hour of being on Nifes, which left them a good few hours to window shop and have fun. The purchase had entailed spending a good chunk of the heavy feather-like things they’d brought, leaving them with just the smaller types of stone, metal shards, and tiny black bouncy balls to barter with. 

Lance stashed the braces they’d gotten away in his pouch and hoped Keith and Pidge’s mission into the core of Kesta went just as smoothly.

“Alrighty, Lance, you ready for a culinary ride of your life?” Hunk asked, already having determined the direction to the food area. 

“My palate has been cleansed and my stomach has been warned,” Lance joked and bounded over to him, excited for some weird cuisine.

  
Hunk and Lance messed around at the spice and food markets for their remaining allotted time on the planet. By the end, they’d tried so much food their stomachs were bursting, having taken each market alley stall by stall in a systematic fashion that Hunk would not budge from. 

Hunk’s passion in action was so endearing. The love inside Lance pushed its way up his throat thickly, and he couldn’t help but envelop his broad back in a big hug while Hunk was still talking about optimal storage solutions for what looked like hairy nuts with a sales-alien. He just felt so full, so free and confident in his skin with Hunk, like he didn’t need to think, just be...

When they had no feathers or spheres or whatever left, and they were idly browsing through some sort of junk area, about to head back, Lance spotted  _ it _ and panicked. 

_ It _ was in the corner of a box of jumble at the front of a very average stall.  _ It  _ was a chunk of firm spongy material that also happened to be the only known material that could sharpen Luxite blades.  _ It  _ was extremely rare. And Lance only knew this information because he had been listening in when Keith had talked to Coran about it at dinner a few weeks ago, ‘cause  _ obviously _ . Obviously he was aware of and remembered anything even tangentially related to Keith. And now he here he was, stuck with the fact that he knew that these things were called Sorba, and that most of them were dark grey, but some even rarer species were dark green, and that this was one of the green ones. 

Unmistakably, the Sorba’s little spongy holes had weird protrusions inside that looked like eyes, and they were staring at Lance. The Sorba knew Lance knew. Somehow.

_ Fuck. _

Sorba were so rare, there was absolutely no way he could ignore the fact that he was holding one now that he’d spotted it. But at the same time, could he possibly turn up at the castle and present it to Keith without it turning into an embarrassing mess. How could he possibly play this? How could he introduce it without giving away the game completely? 

_ Hey Keith, uh, I just happen to have found and bought this really rare obscure thing for you cause I overheard you talking about it the other week and remembered every detail about it. Hah. Yeah. So. Later! _

Lance felt his hands start to sweat just thinking about the possible scenarios, and everyone’s knowing smirks that would inevitably bear down on him. Any possible combination of words he could think of felt like he was straight-up admitting his pathetic interest in Keith in front of a huge audience. The thought made Lance feel ill. 

_ Fuck _ . No matter how he spliced it, it was gonna look terrible on his record.

But he couldn’t just leave it here. He couldn’t.

Thankfully Hunk was up ahead, engrossed in another crate full of crap, so he wasn’t present to bear witness to Lance’s dilemma, nor his realization that he didn’t have anything left to trade. And he also didn’t see Lance pull out one of the shells he kept on him from back home, and give that to the fascinated aliens running the stall.

Maybe he could pretend that it had been Hunk who had known about the Sorba and bought it? But that would mean bringing Hunk into the whole thing, and that was out of the question.

He slapped his own face with both hands and reprimanded himself.  _ Snap out of it _ . This was all bullshit, and it shouldn’t matter. It was above board and normal to buy useful equipment. His stupid teammate needed this, and what kind of person would he be if he didn’t get it for him? It was rare. It was to help their mission. It was for a noble cause. A simple business transaction.

“So what’s this?” Lance jumped as Hunk insinuated himself behind him.

“What’s what?” Lance asked redundantly to buy himself time to get everything straight and regular sounding.

“The thing you just bought, Lance,” Hunk said unperturbed.

Play it cool. “Oh, just some stone that sharpens Marmora Blades, or some shit, I don’t really know.”

“Nice! I didn’t realize those existed, good thinking Lance! Keith’s gonna be so happy!” Hunk was examining the lump as they made their way out of the market area, back to where they’d parked the pods.

Lance quietly choked on spit. “What!?—I’m not trying to make him happy or anything, it’s just universe-saving related.” 

“Oh, okay, sure, buddy,” Hunk said, giving him a confused look, and handing the Sorba back so Lance could stow it away in his sack.

Lance stewed on that confused look, and their entire conversation all the way back to the castle, trying to gauge how casual he’d come off; trying to triangulate the perfect time and place to give Keith the present. Maybe he could just leave it at Keith’s door—but no, that option was bust ‘cause Hunk would tell him it was Lance, and that would make it into an even bigger, more embarrassing  _ thing _ .

The normal-person way of doing it was just going to be to hand it over, he concluded with a mental sigh. Why couldn’t he just…  _ urgh _ .

All through their collective debrief (successful, everyone had been successful) and all through dinner, Lance procrastinated. First off, he couldn’t do it in front of everyone at the debrief. The prospect of randomly piping up about giving Keith a present was so far outside the realm of anything he was willing to do that his stomach swooped in nervous protest at the mere thought. Hard pass. 

But then the longer he left it, the weirder it got. Walking through the halls toward the kitchen: pass cause Keith was at the front with Shiro, and how odd would it be for him to just barge in and interrupt their conversation. And then dinner: a diamond strength hard pass. Sitting there between Hunk and Pidge, he could predict the way everyone’s eyes would swivel over to him, and watch him fail to hide how  _ affected _ he was by Keith, cringing at his stumbling words... He might as well just die. 

Finally, Lance decided it had to be done when they were walking back to their rooms that evening. Keith was Lance’s room neighbor, so he had a whole hallway of time alone with him. Enough time to discreetly, by the by, slip it into small talk, no biggie.

Who was he kidding, they didn’t  _ do _ small talk. They walked in silence. The tension and awareness inflated inside Lance’s stomach like a balloon the closer they got to their destination, making his hands shake. He needed to just  _ do _ it, do it, do it,  _ now _ , but the thought seized him up painfully. He  _ couldn’t _ but he  _ had to _ . 

Lance tried to compose a script in his head—a plan of how he could phrase things to make it easier, but his mind short-circuited, refusing to cooperate. In a daze, he ended up watching Keith’s shoulders as he walked ahead, hypnotized by their shape and motion. Their gentle rise and fall, and the sound of their combined footfall accompanied Lance’s rising desperation and frustration.

Lance waited until Keith was about to push the pad to open his door before he was finally forced to speak. “Wait, Keith.”

Despite all of his best efforts, he’d somehow  _ still _ made the moment super dramatic, damn it. Lance wanted to melt into the floor. 

Keith turned toward him, and looked at him in expectant silence, watching Lance’s frozen face impassively. Lance was finally pinned into place by the attention he’d been both avoiding and craving for a lot longer than just today. Lance’s face felt like it was about to peel off, burning with shame.

“What is it?” Keith demanded. His eyes, his lips, his hair, his powerful posture—he was a black hole. Lance could never hope to escape him when he crossed his event horizon. This was why he avoided unprotected contact with Keith. He only ever peered at him from his peripheral vision, only threw stones at him from a safe distance. Never looked at him with his eyes open, unprotected. Keith would be able to take him apart in seconds; crumble him into his constituent parts, and find him ridiculous. He’d consider the very idea of him (and his shameful and silly and  _ gross _ desires never spoken aloud, kept between his imagination and his sheets) laughable. Pitiable.

Lance cleared his throat and put his hands on his hips. “I completely forgot that me and Hunk got this for you until just now.” Lance dug the Sorba out of his pocket and held it out to Keith. “From Nifes.”

Keith’s eyes lingered on the object in front of him for a second before he reached out to take it. He inspected it carefully; the pores and eyes and the ridges. Anxiety rose through Lance’s stomach, his hands sweaty and still shaking. What was Keith thinking? Did he think this was weird? Was this awkward?

“Thanks, Lance,” Keith said, raising his eyes back up from the Sorba.

Lance felt a thrill up his spine when their eyes met, and he was unable to look away. The moment stretched until the alarms in Lance’s stomach started blaring.  _ Abort! The moment is becoming too heavy! Abort! He can see you! Abort! He’ll think you think this is something… ABORT! _

“No problemo, Keith.” Lance pushed a hand into his hair and sniffed. “It’s my sharpshooters’ eye for detail,” he said, fluffing up his hair a little. “I dunno where we’d be without it.” He gave Keith a parting smirk and a shrug, and without waiting for a response, casually strolled over to his own door. “Catch you later, dude,” he said with a stupid grin and a finger gun before the door closed on him.

Inside, Lance threw himself onto his bed feeling the adrenaline of having  _ barely _ landed a very risky maneuver coursing through him. He got back up a second later—the nerves coursing through his body making it impossible to keep still—and tried to focus on the mechanics of getting ready for bed. 

He’d gone through the conversation with Keith in his mind, and just about convinced himself that he’d done about as good a job as he could have back there when a realization hit him like a ton of bricks dropping through his stomach at once.

He’d basically admitted that it had been him that had found the Sorba.

Frozen, in the bathroom, face dripping, it took a while for his heart rate to climb back down.

  
  


He was granted very little time with the hard-won resting heart rate, because the very next morning, Keith took a hammer to the crack he’d been frantically trying to duct tape over all night. 

He flopped down next to Lance in a sweaty mess after 8 AM team training, and Lance automatically passed him a drink. An incredibly justified and normal thing to do, Lance told himself. ‘Cause like, the box of space-juice cartons was on the far side next to Pidge, and Lance happened to have another one on him, specifically, the flavor Keith liked best. He knew this because Keith always made a little annoyed grunt when he got any of the other flavors. He only liked Honeyberry and Pickled Pop, a very sweet weird Altean flavor. 

That little tidbit about Keith was so inexplicably appealing. Just like everything else about him, in an exciting and confusing way. Lance subconsciously hoarded all of the little details he found out about Keith, and then sometimes let himself take them out from where he’d crammed them in his chest to examine them carefully. Let their specificity and their promise melt on his tongue like rich chocolate. Knowing, and thinking about each one of them felt like touching a magic artifact. 

_ Keith loves Honeyberry _ , something whispered through his lungs gleefully. He tried to ignore it.

_ It’s mundane and normal _ . And that was why he handed the drink over like it was nothing—because it  _ was _ nothing. 

“Thanks, Lance, this one’s my favorite,” Keith said with a small smile that implied Lance had put a ton of  _ thought _ into the action or something. Implying it was a pattern linked to the Sorba yesterday.  _ Danger. _

Keith’s voice carried across the room and Allura looked over briefly.  _ Danger. _ Lance could feel Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro staring at the back of his head too, probably thinking about how weird he’d acted the day before.  _ Danger _ . Hunk had probably told Pidge, and Keith had told Shiro, and now everyone  _ knew _ , could  _ see. _

Lance was exposed. On the chopping block. Pressure behind his face.

_ Danger. _

He forced himself to laugh casually and work through it. “Yeah, well, whenever you drink the other ones, you slurp really annoyingly, and it really messes me up.”  _ Terrible. _

“Okay,” Keith replied simply and without much regard for Lance’s explanation, focusing instead on the drink in his hand. One word was enough to pull Lance’s attention back in from where it was previously, banging against the confines of his skull.

Keith was a sweaty disheveled mess, but somehow he still managed to exude the luxurious appeal of an oiled up warrior. He was so present and strong. He was someone who knew exactly what they were about and hadn’t wasted a thought questioning it. Not like Lance...

Before Lance could rip his eyes away, their eyes met for a searing second, and Lance was stuck.

_Keith loves honeyberry_, Lance’s mind helpfully supplied, words an awed whisper underscoring the visual of Keith’s hands raising the juice pack to his mouth. Keith’s uncompromising eyes stayed trained on him while his gently parted lips closed around the green straw. Lance imagined Keith’s tongue pressing up against the straw, suction pulling juice into his mouth. He imagined his taste buds savoring the sweetness, the mental image accompanied by Keith’s short little inhales between pulls on the straw. 

Lance hastily picked himself up, jerking out of his wide-eyed, open-mouthed trance, and stared at his own juice, exhaling long and controlled. He looked around and found no remaining eyes on him, thankfully. Keith's attention was now on his gloves, checking for damage or something, still sipping out of the corner of his mouth.

_ God damn it, that was awful _ , he chastised himself. Why couldn’t he keep it together for one interaction? He needed so badly to get out of here, to escape and gather himself before he truly lost it. 

Lance felt like he was hanging by a thread, face burning from a couple of days of accumulated embarrassment. 

He felt sick and he desperately needed a shower, so he made as hasty an exit he could without it seeming weird.

Holed up in his room for a few hours, he managed to take his mind off of the last few disastrous days. Distractions and time always helped bring him down from a boil to a simmer, and then back to room temperature. He had always been good at papering over things after the fact.

And for the next few days, he was almost convinced that it was fine. Just a blip.

But then, suddenly, the whole house fell down around Lance.

The battle for Kesta had come, and Pidge and Hunk had managed to build the superconducting magnet, and Keith and Lance powered it up just in time to get the Kestian organic crystal defense system back online before the Galra attack. 

Sweat dripping down their necks, side by side, using every last bit of effort, they’d done it, together.

Lance pulled himself out of the underground crystal core with a huge grunt—a vocal accompaniment to his extreme levels of exhaustion. Before he could collapse onto the charred ground, he reached back down into the cave for Keith without a second thought. Keith took it with a small grateful noise, his thumb hooking around Lance’s for purchase, and levered himself up to ground level with a great big shout of effort. 

For some reason, standing there at the mouth of the Kestian crystal core, side by side, Lance forgot to retract his hand. Keith didn’t let go either. The excitement and the elation of victory took over the reins in Lance’s brain, drowning out his rational mind completely. He was left at the bubbly mercy of his feelings, and they unleashed themselves onto Keith.

“ _ YES _ ! That was so awesome, dude,” Lance yelled at Keith, bringing him into a one-armed hug around their joined hands without hesitation. “The way you did that—jamming your sword in after I tried to keep the wires together— _ fuck— _ that  _ ruled. _ ” The hug was clunky around their armor, but he could feel Keith’s other hand pat his back tentatively.

When he pulled back, he gave Keith a big goofy grin that he couldn’t do anything to stop. “You rule.” Keith’s eyes were wide, mouth slightly ajar, breathing heavy from exertion. “ _ We _ rule,” Lance added on, his grin getting even wider. 

Lance realized their hands were still clasped, but couldn’t make himself give up that perfect, solid grasp. 

After a long silence that Lance didn’t have the capacity to interfere with right then, Keith said, “yeah,” mostly just vocal fry and breath, and not much intonation at all.

Finally, Black and Shiro found them—both too exhausted to speak, leaning against a nearby charred crystal, hands still clasped—and flew them back to the castle.

  
  
  


In bed at midnight, his adrenaline back to normal levels, the high of success having faded, Lance’s mind finally kicked back in and reminded him in full, relentless detail how embarrassingly he’d acted. Shame enveloped his insides like a cage crushing in and  _ in _ . In a stupid moment of weakness, he’d been incapable of holding back the tide of his own eagerness. Just straight-up embarrassing himself, acting like Keith was a celebrity, fawning over him like a blushing idiot, gushing and clinging to him just like all the girls had done at the Garrison.

Lance bit his sheets in frustration and upset. Everything was slipping through his fingers. He was unraveling right in front of everyone. Keith was going to see Lance’s pathetic, delicate insides. Just imagining Keith’s confused pitying face finding out the ways Lance wanted him, made him want to die. 

Lance was losing it. He was fucking losing it over Keith Kogane and it was so blatant everyone could tell. 

The embarrassment stunned him, catching him at the crossroads between ripping his skin off, running away, and retreating inward and never leaving his room again. Simultaneous implosion and explosion, stuck in the exposed stasis of the middle.

Granted, he’d always felt helpless regret and embarrassment after any interaction they’d  _ ever _ had. He remembered analyzing every grand declaration or interjection and every show-off move he’d made in class later, in his dorm room at the Garrison. He’d think about how  _ ridiculous _ —how  _ desperate _ he must have come off—and he’d wanted to scream into his pillow. He’d wanted to punch the fucker for being so unaffected; for reducing him to a mess like this. After the bonfire of shame and fury burned back down into the long-term embers of discomfort, he’d vowed to get back at him, to show him  _ this time _ . That he was worth paying attention to. That he was just as good. That he could kick his ass.

But even all of  _ that _ had never been quite like  _ this _ . This felt life-threatening. Wholly unlike the habitual cycle he’d been stuck in back then. Back then, the truth, Lance’s soft pathetic belly, had been easily hidden within the jumble of all of his other antics and dramatics. Despite it all, his insides had never felt this exposed. Whatever he’d said or done around Keith at school was more easily shuffled in among all of the rest of his habitual shouts into the void. So in the grand scheme, it might have been mortifying, but it wasn’t life or death.

But this, here and now, couldn’t be hidden.  _ There was no coming back from this _ . 

Lance’s hands shook, one gripping at the pillow he’d pushed his face into harshly, one clutching at the folds of his robe around his stomach. Curled into a ball, he breathed harshly with the pillow in the way, his face growing hotter and hotter with the moisture of his breathing unable to escape.

_“I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen_,” Lance whispered to himself. “_And_ _I’m going to focus_.” He clutched the pillow hard against his chest. “_I’m going to knock Keith on his ass and show him what I’m made of. I’m going to ignore him, and show him that I—that I’m just as good as him._” 

He’d get himself back on track, he thought, before drifting off, mind still scattered and scared. He  _ would _ . He would.

It came as a total and utter shock, therefore, when a few days later—before his plans of damage control, of nonchalance and of cool collected power even had a chance to properly get going—Keith barged into the otherwise empty rec room. 

“Hey, uh, Lance?” Keith’s voice sounded determined and slightly impatient. 5 GAC said Keith was about to yell at him to get his ass onto the training deck and to stop wasting time playing space-Tetris on his tablet and slacking off on the couch.

“Yeah, what’s a-lickin’, chicken?” Lance asked, knowing it’d probably take Keith a few seconds to process that wholly nonsensical statement. A genius diversion, intended to keep him occupied for long enough so that Lance could finish this mini-game he was about to win, without the distraction of Keith’s low voice—

“I just wanted to let you know that—” Keith sounded vaguely angry. “That—that I have feelings for you, okay?”

The tablet Lance was playing on fell right onto his forehead, and for some reason, his body decided to echo the tablet, and fall right off the sofa, onto the floor.

Lance stared, a terrifying bolt of adrenaline shooting through his gut. “Wh—” he began intelligently.  _ There was no way _ , he told himself before his mind could even  _ start _ suggesting anything.

Keith’s face was unreadable. Maybe the tablet had given him a concussion, and Keith had actually said “healings for you”—but that didn’t make sense, both grammatically, and because he wasn’t sick. Maybe dealings? What kind of deals could he possibly be talking about— 

Keith cut his hysterical theorizing short. “I said: I have feelings for you, Lance,” he repeated, slightly louder.

Lance’s mouth fell open for a long silent moment before it jumped back into action. “I mean, what kind of, uh, feelings are we talking here, ‘cause, y’know, there’s a bunch of different ones, right?” Was this supposed to be a joke? Did everyone know? He  _ had _ to play this cool and not jump to any conclusions.

“Romantic feelings.”

“Oh,” Lance said after a while. He still couldn’t rule out a practical joke but something about Keith’s constipated face told him that was absurd. Keith didn’t practically joke. 

Lance was silent, trying to wrap his head around a fact he thought was impossible a few seconds ago becoming concrete reality, smacking him between the eyes literally and figuratively. He had no idea how to react, or what to think.

“Look. You don’t have to say or do anything, Lance. I just wanted to tell you, and now we can both move on,” Keith said with a finality that tripped a wire in Lance.

“Oh wait, nuh nuh no, moving on? We are  _ not _ moving anywhere. You can’t just drop this on me and peace out, Keith!” Lance was on autopilot.

“This isn’t a big  _ deal _ , okay, you don’t have to make this a whole  _ thing,  _ let’s just—”

“Not a big deal?” Lance almost shrieked.

“Okay, never mind. Forget I said anything.” He looked kinda pissed and ready to throw hands. 

Keith turned and started walking away and Lance felt desperation overtake him.

He jumped up and grabbed Keith’s arm. “Keith, wait, hold on, you didn’t even give me a chance to say anything.”

“You  _ really _ don’t have to—” Keith was looking at him with those heavy, burning eyes.

“So you don’t actually want me to say yes then?” Lance asked, his tone light and teasing. A dense dread started to spread in his stomach. Did Keith _ like him _ , and yet  _ still _ not want anything to do with him?

“I—uh—no?” Keith’s face scrunched up in puzzlement after a moment of contemplation.

“I mean... I could, y’know, possibly, be persuaded to give it a whirl, since you’re asking so nicely and seem so enthusiastic and all,” Lance said, hoping his tone covered up for the flip his stomach just did from chilling fear to ecstasy. He topped the pitch off with a winning grin, his gut still in turmoil.

“Oh, okay,” Keith breathed, eyes going wide.

Lance stared.  _ Oh, okay, then _ .

He let go of Keith’s jacket slowly. “Cool,” Lance said, licking his lower lip and then biting down lightly. His two canines bearing down felt like blunt beacons tethering him to reality. “I’ll see you around then, Keith.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, his voice serious. “See you, Lance.” He then turned back and left the room, giving nothing away.

Lance stood there for a moment, replaying the way Keith had said his name, stuck in a loop. Shaking himself out of it, he backed up and threw himself onto the sofa face first, feeling a bit queasy. What the fuck. What the  _ fuck _ . 

Keith had looked so pissed, but—but—it had been real, right? He’d just been asked out by Keith Kogane. Or was he currently trapped in a flesh-eating hallucination-mushroom-planet, or was this the mind-meld machine? Was he currently broadcasting his deepest desires to the whole gang?

He groaned. 

What was he gonna do? 

With a rush, Lance realized that this meant Keith kinda liked guys, at least a little bit if he—if he could see  _ Lance _ like  _ that _ — 

The thought felt too dangerous to handle so he focused back on his questions.

What had he _ done _ ? What was it about him that had worked on Keith? What could it possibly have been? 

The only explanation he could come up with was that he’d somehow managed to fool Keith after all, and keep all that desperate, cringe shit hidden. It  _ must _ have been working. His whole… thing.

But how was he going to continue the ruse now? How was he supposed to  _ act _ ? How was he going to stop Keith from realizing that he’d been obsessed with him since he was 15, back in his Garrison room, imagining what it would be like to kiss him, eyes shut, touching his lips to his fist to simulate the sensation.

He couldn’t let Keith know that he was privately cast as the object of his tender, earnest romantic attention—the love interest to Lance’s romantic lead. Lance wanted to be  _ wanted _ , he wanted to be  _ yearned for _ in the same way he yearned and wanted, as if that wasn’t a completely ridiculous notion. As if anyone could actually see him in that light. 

Lance wanted attention and craved love with every fiber of his being, and a desperation that shocked himself sometimes. It was his shameful weakness, and if anyone ever found out, a dagger would slide into his vulnerable belly through the chink in his armor; the emotional equivalent to turning up to school naked. 

Everyone would see that desperation in him and confirm how ridiculous the idea of  _ him _ , like  _ that _ was. They would realize he wanted to be the romantic lead, and they’d see how genuine and intense his longing was and laugh. They’d realize that everything about him had been bluster. They’d know he was a fraud, and  _ pity _ him.

God damn it, he  _ had _ to be cool. Chill.

Lance got up from the couch and stuck his trembling fingers in his pockets.

Cool. Aloof. Chill. Casual. 

He did a few laps around the room, chanting the words, hoping to hammer them home. All he needed to do was carry on as he was, keep it together, and maybe he’d pull this thing off, somehow. 

**Author's Note:**

> So what do y'all think Lance is gonna get up to now? 
> 
> ☛ I'm [@king_froggy_](https://twitter.com/king_froggy_) on twitter. Come talk to me if you like, I love meeting new people!


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